Quiet shepherd

When Steven Vanackere was called on to become Belgium’s foreign minister in November 2009, a few eyebrows were raised. Vanackere may be friendly and charming, he was deputy prime minister, but was he really a political heavyweight, some wondered. A Brussels politician, Vanackere was neither well-known nor especially popular with the Flemish electorate. And his appear-ance is less that of a political bruiser than of a boy who rarely causes trouble.

Others, though, had no such doubts. Indeed, some expected him to become prime minister. He had become deputy prime minister within five years of winning his first election and, before that, Vanackere had been the ‘quiet number two’ of the Flemish Christian Democrat party (CD&V) for quite some time. He had been called the “best kept secret of rue de la Loi”, Belgium’s street of power, his ties with the party’s trade union were strong, and he had proven adept at winning the trust of French-speaking politicians.

Vanackere’s tenure as foreign minister has tested his talents. For the past five months, he has been part of a caretaker government and for the past four months he has also chaired the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, as Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. The 46-year-old has emerged with plaudits, impressing many EU officials as a good talker, as a good listener and for his trademark composure and diligence.

“He might not be a political animal, but he believes in expertise and applies his to every issue he has to deal with,” a ministerial aide says.

Political animal or not, Vanackere certainly has politics in the blood. His grandfather was mayor of Wevelgem in West Flanders, and his father was a member of parliament, then of the Senate and, briefly, governor of the province of West Flanders.

On his father’s sudden death in 1979, his 15-year-old youngest son vowed not to devote his life to politics. But when he went to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Vanackere started with a bachelor’s degree in political sciences and, shaggy-haired and bearded, he agitated against a rise in university entrance fees.

He was a moderate leader, preferring debate rather than battle, fellow students recall. It is a trait that persists. Vanackere added master’s degrees in law and economics and, for a year, headed the university’s Law Students’ Association.

But he began his career not in law, but in a bank. He moved on swiftly, entering the backrooms of politics in 1988, by joining the Research Centre of the Christian Democrat Party (known then as the CVP). The head of the centre at the time was Herman Van Rompuy, and when Van Rompuy became chairman of the Christian Democrats, Vanackere followed him to the party’s headquarters as his political adviser.

At university, he was a moderate leader, preferring debate rather than battle. It is a trait that persists

Another private-office job followed, when, in 1991, he joined the cabinet of a minister of the Brussels Capital Region, Jos Chabert. He learned the ins and outs of the political trade here. In the same period, he served as director-general of the port of Brussels. Later, from 2000, he was deputy head of the Brussels public-transport company.

After a life as a party apparatchik and technocrat, Vanackere finally entered the political arena in 2004. He advanced rapidly. His first post was a seat in the Flemish parliament; in 2006, he added a seat in the Brussels city council. A year later, reshuffles caused by Yves Leterme’s elevation to prime minister opened up a post for Vanackere in the Flemish regional government, as minister for welfare, public health and family. In 2008, Van Rompuy took over from Leterme, and he called on Vanackere to be deputy prime minister and federal minister of civil service, public enterprises and institutional reforms.

When rumours began to circulate that Van Rompuy might become the European Council’s first permanent president, Vanackere’s name was mentioned as a possible prime minister. In the event, Vanackere, a man of limited international experience, became foreign minister, a promotion he has called “the most beautiful surprise of my career”.

Vanackere has so far landed in troubled waters once, when pictures appeared of him convivially sharing a beer with Joseph Kabila on the country estate of the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The drink turned out to be fruit juice, but he was fiercely attacked by a predecessor, Karel De Gucht, now the European commissioner for trade, for being too soft on the Congolese leadership. Vanackere, a man who breaks the mould of high-profile Belgian foreign ministers, calmly retorted that engagement was more rewarding than “megaphone diplomacy”.

That attitude is evident in his chairmanship of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council. Aware that the Lisbon treaty had diminished the importance of the EU’s rotating presidency, Vanackere declared when he took up the job that “Belgium should act as a German shepherd dog” – in other words, Belgium, a small country with a much-tested expertise in compromise, should guide the club into a new working routine and help establish a new institutional balance.

Vanackere is, however, ambitious for the EU. At last week’s European Council, he argued that the EU should focus more on being a player than a payer.

His style is that of a good listener: he is calm, soft-spoken, polite, diplomatic. “People tend to think he is a man of the head,” a colleague says. “But he has a heart and gets very angry on seeing injustice.”

Vanackere, who is a practicing Catholic educated at a school run by Carmelite Friars, is also demanding – of himself (he reportedly sometimes work up to 18 hours a day) and of others. “He is never authoritarian,” says another associate, “but he can be impatient.”

It comes as no surprise that, as Vanackere once told an interviewer, he wants politicians to be judged by their achievements, rather than by the pyjamas they wear at home. He remains a down-to-earth man. From time to time, he is spotted eating in his ministry’s canteen, but his Dutch wife, Käthe Stock, is rarely caught on camera.

He likes good wine (with typical conscientiousness, he followed a wine course for two years), cycling and walking his dog, but his real passion is language. He speaks four languages fluently and is an avid reader. His dream, he says, is to write a novel – as a teenager he wrote science-fiction stories.

He shares that yen for writing with the haiku-writing Van Rompuy, and he gave a nod to his old mentor when he read out a haiku he himself had composed at the opening of Belgium’s new embassy in Tokyo. The Christian Democrats’ poor showing in elections this June mean that he will not become prime minister soon. Few, though, would now bet against that happening one day.